Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-10-21 Tuesday

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

Headlines for October 21, 2025; “We Are Under Attack”: Rep. Delia Ramirez on Immigration Crackdown in Chicago, Gov’t Shutdown & More; Shadow President: Project 2025 Architect Russell Vought Is Using Shutdown to Gut Federal Agencies; “Armed Only with a Camera”: HBO Film on Life & Death of Brent Renaud, Journalist Killed in Ukraine

From New York, this is Democracy Now. We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they woke up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work. We want to put them in trauma. The shadow president. Who is Russ' vote? The man who once vowed to traumatize federal workers. As the government shutdown enters its 21st day,

we'll speak to Andy Kroll of ProPublica. He's more than just Donald Trump's budget guru. He has two very clear goals. To make the presidency as powerful as it's ever been and to dismantle as much of the federal bureaucracy as he can. But first we go to Chicago to speak with Democratic Congresswoman Gailiart Ramirez about the shutdown and the growing protests in Chicago against Trump sweeping immigration crackdown.

They want to normalize violence. They want to normalize cruelty. They want us to be okay with what they're doing so that you won't question what they do next. But let me be very clear to Donald Trump and all those criminals. You will not break the city of Chicago ever. Finally, armed only with a camera, the life and death of Brent Renault, a new HBO documentary about the first Western journalist killed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine in 2022. We've just got some breaking news. Brent Renaud, an American photojournalist, has been killed.

Brent lost his life documenting the horrors of the battlefield in Ukraine. We'll speak. To Brent Renault's brother, filmmaking partner, Craig Renault, as well as journalist Juan Errando, who was also shot in the attack that killed Brent. All that and more coming up. Welcome to DemocracyNow, DemocracyNow.org, the War and Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Israel's continuing deadly attacks across the Gaza Strip, despite the ceasefire with Hamas that went into effect October 10th. Gaza health officials say at least 13 Palestinians were killed, eight others wounded by Israeli fire over the past 24 hours.

The killings came, as the World Health Organization warned many of the 170,000 Palestinians injured by Israel's assault on Gaza, will need rehab care and support for years to come with some 42,000 facing life-changing injuries. This is Mahmoud al-Nakala, a displaced Palestinian who sought care for his daughter at Gaza City's Eldaraj Clinic, which was repeatedly bombed by Israel. My wife, mother, and my two daughters were killed, and my daughter, Dana, was seriously injured. Currently, we are at the hospital. There are no treatments or any medical supplies. There are even flies and mosquitoes everywhere. We didn't even have a mattress.

We brought it from outside the hospital. There are no blankets or medical supplies. We are suffering greatly. Earlier today, Vice President J.D. Vance arrived in Israel for talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amidst reports Netanyahu is preparing to collapse the U.S. brokered ceasefire. Vance is joining Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in the talks. In the occupied West Bank, the United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Office says it's documented 71 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property in just one week. Among the victims is a 55-year-old woman who was hospitalized with a brain hemorrhage after she was beaten unconscious by a masked Israeli settler wielding a club.

Independent journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who filmed Sunday's violence against Palestinian olive farmers in the occupied West Bank village of Tumazaya, compared the Israeli settlers' attack to a lynch mob. Meanwhile, Palestinians have held a funeral for Mohamed al-Halak, a 10-year-old who was fatally shot in the pelvis as he fled Israeli soldiers who raided his village south of Hebron last week. He'd been playing soccer in a schoolyard when Israeli military vehicles approached. A federal appeals court has ruled President Trump can deploy the National Guard to Portland, lifting a lower court's restraining order that had blocked Trump from sending troops to the city. Oregon's attorney general Dan Rayfield said if the ruling stands, it would give Trump, quote, unilateral power to put Oregon soldiers on our streets with almost no justification, adding, we are on a dangerous path in America, unquote.

Meanwhile, a federal judge in Chicago questioned federal immigration authorities Monday about using tear gas against protesters and journalists violating a previous court order preventing ICE from deploying tear gas against crowds. This comes as another court has denied granting a restraining order to stop Tennessee's Republican Governor Bill Lee from deploying the National Guard in Memphis. Homeland Security Secretary Christine Nome's defending the purchase of two luxury private jets for herself and other DHS officials costing more than $170 million in public funds. The U.S. Coast Guard's acquisition of two Gulfstream G700 jets comes as the federal government shutdown is in its 21st day, hampering federal nutrition assistance and other public aid for millions of people, nationwide. In a statement, Democratic Congress member, Benny Thompson slammed the multi-million

dollar purchase is, quote, blatantly immoral and probably illegal, unquote. This comes as ISIS spent over $70 million more on weapons for its agents since Trump returned to office, a 700% increase. This includes the purchase of explosives, chemical weapons, and guided missile warheads as immigration raids and crackdowns on protesters intensify across the United States. Colombia's government has recalled its ambassador to the United States as tensions rise with the Trump administration over its repeated extrajudicial military strikes on boats in the Caribbean, many off the coast of Venezuela. The U.S. has blown up at least seven votes in the region, killing over two dozen people,

as officials claim without evidence the vessels are carrying drugs. Colombia and President Gustavo Petro addressed the threats in an exclusive interoperable interview Monday with Unifisian. The anti-drug policy of the United States is a policy of dominance over Colombia and Latin America. They've killed one million Latin Americans, and the demands for cocaine in the United States has not decreased by a single gram, and it's also increasing in Europe. That is called domination, and it's what made Trump so angry. That is why I said he's preparing an invasion of Venezuela, not because of drug trafficking.

Those are lies. In Japan, the former economic security minister, Sinai Takayichi, has made history as the nation's first female prime minister. She is an arch-conservative protege of the late former leader Shenzhouabe, who ran under the slogan Japan First. She holds a revisionist view of Japan's history in World War II and is a regular visitor to the Yasukuni Shrine, where some convicted war criminals are memorialized. Takeichi is a longtime admirer of Britain's first female Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.

She's consistently opposed legislation that would allow women to keep their maiden names after marriage. She's also opposed to marriage equality. The Trump administration fired two federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia after they voiced opposition to the criminal case against New York Attorney General Lettisha James. That's according to CBS News, which reports the firings of assistant U.S. attorneys Kristen Byrd and Elizabeth U.C. continue an ongoing purge in the office after Trump forced out his own handpicked interim U.S. attorney, Eric Siebert, for refusing to bring charges against James and former FBI director, James Comey. Trump replaced Siebert with his personal attorney, Lindsay Halligan, an insurance law. lawyer with no prosecutorial experience. On Monday, lawyers for James Comey asked a federal judge to throw out the criminal charges against him, arguing Halligan is unlawfully installed as

U.S. attorney, a position that requires Senate confirmation. They also argued Trump's repeated public statements calling for Comey to be jailed, show Comey was the victim of a selective prosecution. A former Justice Department lawyer speaking out about illegal orders he received while working under President Trump's hand-picked Assistant U.S. Attorney General Emil Beauvais. Whistleblower Erez U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. U.S. President. Scott Pilly. Bovet instructed attorneys at a meeting they may have to consider telling a court, F.U. The Beauvais used the expletive. The order came as the Trump administration rushed to send a plane full of immigrants to be imprisoned in a Salvador's terrorism confinement center, Seikot, without trial. Bovi emphasized those planes need to take off no matter what.

And then after a pause, he also told all in attendance. And if some court should issue an order preventing that, we may have to consider telling that court, you. And when you heard that, you thought what? It felt like a bomb had gone off. Here is the number three official using expletives to tell career attorneys that we may just have to consider disregarding federal court orders. In a statement, Emil Bovey called Ravani's claims a, quote, mix of falsehoods and wild distortions of reality, unquote, Bovei was confirmed by the Senate in July to a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge.

President Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel, Paul and Gracia, texted a group of Republicans that he has a Nazi streak, adding that the Martin Luther King holiday should be, quote, tossed into the seventh circle of hell, unquote. The comments were among a slew of racist texts from Ingracia, published by Politico on Monday. Following their publication, Senate Majority Leader John Thune signaled Ingracia's nomination is unlikely to be advanced by a Senate committee at a confirmation hearing scheduled for Thursday. This follows Politico's publication of an image of an American flag altered to include an image of a swastika that was displayed inside the Capitol Hill office of Republican

Congressman Dave Taylor. Taylor leader disavowed the symbol, claiming his office was targeted as part of an orchestrated campaign against Republicans. This all comes after President Trump appeared to use a white nationalist dog. whistle in a recent speech to military leaders in Quantico, Virginia. Trump claimed without evidence that under President Biden, immigrants murdered 11,488 people. 11,488 murders allowed into our country by this guy who had no clue. He had no clue. The speech was likely written by Trump's anti-immigrant advisor, Stephen Miller.

It appears to be a reference to the number 1488, a coded rallying cry for militant white nationalists. Seven universities have declined to sign a compact to agree to the Trump administration's demands regarding admissions, campus hiring policies, and speech and classrooms in exchange for federal funding. The letter was sent to nine universities earlier this month. the universities rejecting the compact include University of Arizona, Brown University, Dartmouth College, MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, and the University of Virginia. Vanderbilt University reportedly expressed reservations while the University of Texas signaled it was open to signing the compact.

And the White House has started demolishing part of the East Wing to begin building President Trump's $250 million gold-gilded bar. ballroom. The demolition comes despite the fact that the National Capital Planning Commission, a federal agency responsible for major renovations to government buildings in Washington, D.C., has not approved the construction work. Last week, Trump held a White House dinner to thank donors from Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and the weapons industry for funding his ballroom. According to the Wall Street Journal, representatives from Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Google, Amazon.com, and Palantir all attended the dinner with some offering as much as $25 million.

Democratic Congressman Darren Soto wrote on social media, quote, Trump's billionaire ballroom. This is a disgrace. Welcome to the second gilded age. And those are some of the headlines. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman in New York, joined by Democracy Now. now is Juan Gonzalez in Chicago. Hi, Juan.

Hi, Amy, and welcome to all of our listeners and viewers across the country and around the world. Well, a federal judge in Chicago questioned federal immigration authorities Monday about continuing to fire tear gas at protesters and journalists despite her previous court order. U.S. District Court Judge Sarah Ellis ordered the government to preserve all video evidence of federal agents firing tear gas and pepper balls during protests against Trump. Trump's escalating immigration crackdown in the Chicago area. And one of the most dramatic instances, a masked ice officer was filmed shooting a Chicago pastor in the head with a pepperball while he prayed outside the Broadview Ice facility.

The priest, David Black, is now part of a lawsuit against the Trump administration. Over the weekend, more than a quarter of a million people rallied in Chicago for the No King's protests, the rally stretched for two miles. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson called for a general strike. Donald Trump is using ICE as his private militarized occupying force. The only other entities that are funded greater than ICE are the United States military and China's military. But we are saying emphatically clear, we do not want troops in our city. We will not allow our cities to be occupied. So here's what we need to do in this moment. If my ancestors as slaves can lead the greatest general strike in the history of this country, taking it to the

ultra-rich and big corporations, we can do the same today. The No King's protests came a day after the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to allow the deployment of the National Guard in the Chicago area. Other speakers at Saturdays No King's protests included Democratic Congresswoman Delia Ramirez, whose district includes Chicago. They want to normalize violence. They want to normalize cruelty. They want us to be okay with what they're doing so that you won't question what they do next. But let me be very clear to Donald Trump and all those criminals. You will not break the city of Chicago ever. Congresswoman Delia Ramirez joins us now to talk about the immigration crackdown in Chicago, the government shutdown, and more.

Why don't we begin with the crackdown? And the court hearing yesterday, the judge saying that the immigration officials were brought. breaking rules when it came to shooting protesters and journalists with pepper balls, tear-gassing them. Talk about what's happening in your city, Congressmember Ramirez. Amy, we are under attack by our own federal government. In many cases, I have constituents who tell me that they feel like our city is under siege. And it's not just a city. It's the surrounding suburbs, in some cases, two hours from the city of Chicago,

where they're targeting communities, communities that have been safe, communities that have been thriving. And in some cases, as you're walking through some of these neighborhoods, they look like ghost neighborhoods because people are just not coming out. People are living in daily fear. And Congresswoman, I wanted to ask you about this hearing which Judge Ellis questioned ICE officials about the use of body cameras. and they claim that they don't have money for body cameras in Chicago, and she ordered that the Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino be deposed about this? How could ICE and Homeland Security say they have no money for body cameras? They have $200 million for Christy Noem to get new jets.

It just doesn't make sense. What we're seeing is an agency that has gone rogue, that has been emboldened and that thinks that they're above the law. I mean, in the same vein, they said that they didn't have to follow the judge's order. The director, director, Hatt, who was supposed to come before the judge yesterday, all of a sudden on Friday, immediately returned back to D.C. Because they know that what they're doing is illegal. And we have to make sure that we continue to organize in the streets.

And that's why you keep hearing us say, if you see ICE activity reported and recorded, because what ICE is stating and what we're seeing in the community, in the streets, is inconsistent. And what do you say about the enormous mobilization at the community level in neighborhood after neighborhood in Chicago? I mean, you've been surprised by that? No, I know Chicago. I am part of the city, this beautiful city of community of 77 neighborhoods. You know, I said to you, people are living in fear. And at the same time, our neighbors, our community organizations, our leaders, our organizers, are in the streets organizing.

They're recording. They have rapid response teams. We're creating human buses to take kids to and from school so that parents don't have to be afraid as what you've seen already happen when an ICE agent stops and drags a mother out of the car while the child is in the back. So we're doing a lot of organizing. We're winning in the courts because that footage is actually being used during litigation. And we're changing minds in Congress. I have colleagues of mine who would never have talked about defunding ICE, would never have talked about questioning ISIS leadership or the day-to-day activity began to talk about perhaps we need to consider defunding. Perhaps we need to consider putting some strong legislation of accountability under an agency that now has gone rogue.

I want to talk about the government shutdown in its 21st day. As Trump breaks ground on this, what's expected to be well more than $250 million gold-gilded ballroom, maybe the symbol of the demolished walls of the White House is particularly significant at this time. And furloughed workers and those that are required to work, essential workers, are not being paid. You have constituents, I want to ask about yours who could lose their supplemental nutritional assistance program, SNAP benefits. If you can talk about what's the central debate in the midst of this shutdown, the Democrats

demanding that the assistance, the continued assistance around ACA, the Affordable Care Act and SNAP continue, and the Republicans saying no. What is going to come of this and explain in your case? Who's affected in Chicago? Yeah. I mean, Amy, Donald Trump and his puppets, my colleagues, the Republicans in Congress, they've made it very clear. They want my constituents uninsured.

They want them unhoused and they want them unemployed. All while he is creating a $200 million. gold project for the White House. All while Cristino continues to spend our taxpayer dollars to build and to be able to purchase $200 million worth of jets, my constituents right now are asking themselves, how could our president hate us so much? How could he be so removed from the reality of the American people that while he brags about his golden rooms, I may not be able to feed my children tomorrow because it's the cut in benefits

and snap benefits. It's people who are not getting paid. Our staff essential workers who have to pay a mortgage on November 1st and they have to wonder how do we keep taking in the calls from our constituents, we'll also figure out how we pay our own mortgages. This is the reality in the world that we're currently living in and it's despicable. And Amy, here's the worst part of all that. It can change overnight. Mike Johnson can call us into session today. He can introduce a resolution that restores health care that protects SNAP benefits that protects the American people, but he's unwilling to do that.

And half of his colleagues are not even in their districts. They're on vacation all over the world. This shutdown is the clear embodiment of Donald Trump's leadership, starve and let people die while the billioners and his cronies enrich themselves. Congresswoman, Johnson and other Republicans keep claiming that the Democratic lawmakers have caused the federal government shut down because they want to extend health care benefits to undocumented immigrants. What's your response?

Juan, it's a vicious lie. And they think that the American people are uninformed, that if they keep saying it, that people will believe that. The federal government prohibits us from using federal funds to provide health care for undocumented people. It is a vicious lie. What they should say is, I don't care if Americans get health care or not. I don't care if you have to triple your insurance premium and choose between going to the doctor or paying your bills. This is a vicious lie. They know it. And when he's questioned enough, he'll walk it away. But this is a danger that we're living in. you have the people in the highest office of our country spewing vicious lies with no responsibility or accountability.

You know, the Republican Senator Tuberville was just interviewed and said, you know, the way they're going to pay, they've made a carve out to pay military members during this shutdown. And he was asked, should they pay furloughed workers? And he said, then we wouldn't have any leverage, right? that puts pressure to end this shutdown if the workers aren't being paid. But I was wondering, with Speaker Johnson not allowing you to come back to reconvene the House of Representatives, should Congress members, should the House of Representatives members be paid? Yeah, I think that's a really good question, right?

And look, some of us would tell you that we are working every single day. some of us are working 70, 80 hours a week demanding to reopen the government. We came in as working class, a few of us, unlike the majority of members of Congress. And we demand that we reopen the government and that we pay our employees, that we protect SNAP benefits. This idea that, you know, go ahead and cut. Yes, I understand how people feel about members of Congress. No one should feel bad for us as your members of Congress. But it is a responsibility of Johnson, one of the wealthiest members of Congress, to do his job, bring us back and protect benefits, protect health care, and make sure that whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, that we're doing everything we can to protect the American people.

And I was wondering about, well, you can't say yet Congress member Grahava because the House Speaker has refused to seat her in an unprecedented move by keeping the house. from convening the Arizona Congresswoman elect who represents Tucson, represents 700,000 people do not have representation right now. What kind of internal discussion is going on? So many saying it's because she would become the final vote needed to demand the release of the Epstein files, this devastating book coming out today by the late Virginia Jewfrey called Nobody's Girl, talking about Epstein. It seems like Trump is ramping everything up to deflect attention from this.

Yeah, I mean, it's true. Johnson prefers that people go homeless and are starved to death in this country than bringing us back, reopening the government, but even more so allowing Adelita to represent her people, her community, her constituents, and become that 218 signature. Just think about that. the protection of pedophiles is above the protection of the children of this country. That is whose Speaker Johnson is protecting pedophiles. He's denying Arizona 7 from having representation so he can continue to cover up.

What we all know is in those files. It's despicable, Amy. And it is why you saw people in Chicago come out. People said, no one's going to want to come out in Chicago. They're living in fear. Ice is all over the city. They're not going to come out. 250,000 people came to Grand Park, but thousands came out throughout the surrounding suburbs

saying, enough is enough. We will not allow a wannabe king, but a pedophile in many cases to continue to dismantle our democracy and to continue to be covered up by a speaker and a Senate leader who care more about a pedophile than the American people. And Congresswoman, we only have a few seconds, but I wanted to ask you about another topic. The continued Israeli attack on Gaza, we finally have a ceasefire now, but what is your sense of what the days ahead hold in terms of reaching some more lasting peace in the Middle East? We know who Donald Trump is. He's a wannabe king, and we know who Bibina and Yahoo is, a war criminal.

I don't trust them to actually, in fact, implement and protect a ceasefire. I mean, you are already seeing the impact right now. This is why I blocked the bombs. My bill is so important. Some people have said, Dele, we don't need that bill anymore. We need congressional oversight more than ever because we can't trust Donald Trump to actually ensure a ceasefire to continue to be in effect.

We've already seen in the last week what has happened. We have to make sure that we are blocking these bombs from being authorized and released to Bevina and Yahoo, and we have to continue to restart our congressional. oversight. If in fact, we're truly committed to a ceasefire. Congress member Delia Ramirez, want to thank you for joining us, Democrat representing Chicago, from Illinois, the first Latina Congresswoman to represent Chicago. Next up, the government shutdown enters its 21st day. Who is the shadow president? Russ vote, the man who once vowed to traumatize federal workers. Back in 20 seconds.

And the hog of thee forsaken got no reason to cry He got to chew the angels falling from on high Waiting for no answer baking woeful pie Pie of eyesight, pie blue-black Roll that pie, the pie of pie and pie. be forsaken, he will leave you one more chance. Which if you won't be taken, he'll leave it for the ants. Sings out in the wilderness.

Hague of the forsaken by the late folk legend Michael Hurley performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. As the government shutdown enters its 21st day, President Trump's vowed to target so-called Democrat agencies. On Friday, Trump's powerful director of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vote, announced an $11 billion funding cut to the Army Corps of Engineers projects in the Democrat-led cities of Baltimore, New York, San Francisco, and Boston. Vote was lead author of the far-right conservative blueprint Project 2025, which Trump previously disavowed. He now serves as Trump's top budget advisor.

Political report Senate Majority Leader John Thune recently warned, fellow lawmakers during budget negotiations, quote, we don't control what votes going to do, unquote. Earlier in the shutdown, Trump posted an AI-generated video set to Blue Oyster Colts classic song, Don't Fear the Reaper, depicting vote as the grim reaper of Washington, D.C. Well, today we look at the shadow president, as some call him. This is part of a video accompanying a new investigation by ProPublica reporter Andy Kroll. He'll join us in a minute. I had heard the name Russ Vote, but he was always just slightly outside the field of vision.

And then I got my hands on this video. We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected. When they woke up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work. He talks about this goal of wanting to traumatize federal workers. He wanted to put them in trauma. That just planted this seed in my mind that I had to try to figure out who this person is. He declined my request for an interview, so I sat up to say, talk to everyone I possibly could, watch every video, listen to every podcast.

I obtained hours of briefings to his supporters that had never been published before. America has experienced nothing short of a quiet revolution. We know the CRT and the transgender sewage that's being pumped into our schools and institutions. A border invasion furthering, quite frankly, a reverse colonization. We're actually trying to save the country. Those recordings really helped understand his evolution from this numbers walk to a full-fledged leader of the MAGA movement. One of the key authors of Project 2025 Russell Vogue told the reporters that Trump would deploy the military to silence the unrest. I think you have to rehabilitate Christian nationalism. He has the largest deportation in history.

Block funding for Planned Parenthood. I want to be the person who crushes the deep state. Yeah, I called for trauma within the bureaucracies. The bureaucracies hate the American people. He really has a vision to change the direction of American history. We must do our duty for the course of this country, quite frankly, for the course of Western civilization, and for the course of history. For more, we're joined by Andy Crowell, investigative reporter for ProPublica. This video accompanies his new article headlined The Shadow President.

Andy, welcome back to democracy now. Just lay out exactly who Russ vote is. The man behind a project 2025, the project that President Trump said he didn't know about, and what he's doing right now, why Republicans as well as Democrats fear him. It's great to be back, Amy, thanks for having me. I would argue that Russ Vote is arguably the most important aid advisor to President Donald Trump in the administration right now. I know viewers and listeners know names like Stephen Miller. They think of Miller perhaps as maybe the number two to President Trump.

But right now in the middle of this shutdown, the 21st day, Ross Vote is as influential as anyone in this administration. has been. He is a driving force, probably the driving force behind the shutdown. And in particular, the White House's efforts to lay off workers in huge numbers across the federal government, to use the threat of more layoffs, to use the threat of frozen funding to keep projects as leverage or just as punishment to Democrats and, again, to nonpartisan civil workers. He is also, as the White House budget director, but really as this sort of visionary in the Trump administration, someone who is single-handedly at times pushing forward this project 2025 agenda, that he had a key role in enacting, and really just playing a instrumental, but behind the scenes largely, role in pushing this Trump administration agenda forward here on the domestic front.

again, he's described as a budget expert as the president's numbers guy, but really he's so much more than that. Someone, again, who sources that I talk to in the federal government, described as basically a second commander-in-chief, a shadow president, that is how visceral and how influential his presence has been in just the nine months of this presidency so far. But Andy, I wanted to ask you, 40 years ago, during the first term of Ronald Reagan. There was another budget director by the name of David Stockman, who became infamous for his cutting of taxes and especially of government spending. What do you see is unique or different about the way that vote is operating? Yeah, and I love that reference, Juan, because I

read a lot about David Stockman when I was working on this piece, and in particular, revisited Stockman's book. I'm going to mangle the title. I think it's the triumph of politics. What Stockman wrote about back during the Reagan administration in that first a few years was how politics got in the way of what Stockman wanted to accomplish on the policy side in terms of dramatically cutting budgets, dramatically scaling back the social safety net government programs and so on. In some ways, you know, Stockman wrote that book almost as a lament for not being able to see out this vision that he had. Forty years later, we have Russ Vote,

and Vote is succeeding in many ways where Stockman did not, and probably has learned a lesson or two. Now, why has Votes succeeded? In some ways he succeeded, because he has tested and in some cases flouted entirely the rule of law, defying laws passed by Congress that say you need to spend this money on these programs, defying laws by Congress that say, you need to be transparent about what the Office of Management and Budget, which vote runs, is doing with funding, when it's freezing funding, when it's holding funding back entirely. Vote has a much more aggressive agenda in terms of how to enact the kinds of cuts, the kinds of dramatic pullbacks in terms of what the federal government does than Stockman wanted.

I mean, they were probably aligned in terms of the vision, the policy, the ideology. What vote has done now, probably learning from the past, is how to be much more aggressive in terms of enacting that vision. And really not letting laws, judicial precedents, get in the way of pushing through a really, really aggressive conservative agenda. And what about the response of the Republican majority? in the House and Senate to what is basically this, not just chipping away, but demolishing the power of Congress over the federal purse. Yeah, it's a really remarkable thing, Juan, to witness. And it is, I would say, an important difference between the Reagan era and today.

You know, in the Reagan era, you had a Congress that stood up for itself, that asserted its Article I constitutional responsibilities to control the power of the purse. That is what Congress does. Article 2 says that the executive will take care to enact the laws that Congress passes. Vote is doing something now that the Reagan administration did not do, or at least not to the extent that Trump is doing now,

which is essentially flouting Congress's Article 1 power. I mean, this is basic constitutional 101 stuff, checks and balances, separation of powers. Vote has essentially said to Congress, I am going to step on your power of the purse constitutional authority. I'm going to freeze funding that you have already appropriated by law. I am going to block programs that you have said, Congress, Republicans and Democrats, that you want funded and do something about it. you know, challenge me. And Congress has not done that. The Republican majorities in the House and the Senate have essentially let Russ vote in the Trump White House trample all over them. And you see these half measure weak comments from Majority Leader Thune, Speaker Johnson,

you know, well, you know, we don't know if we quite like what Mr. Vote is doing, but they have not asserted their Article 1 authority. And in the process, the White House has essentially trampled over them and scrambled the very basic three-part democratic system that we have in the process. It's really a remarkable thing to be watching in real time. Your ProPublica video report features a clip from 2023 Conference of Vote Center for Renewing America when vote is on a stage with Trump ally, Steve Bannon. And I realize there's some people that question Trump, but look at that command performance. he gave the other night. I mean, it's like Charlemagne. That's like a Viking chieftain

standing up there. He's a very imperfect instrument, right? But he's an instrument of the Lord. He's an instrument of the Lord for his vengeance. He's an instrument of the Lord for his vengeance, Steve Bannon said, about Andy Kroll, who was sitting next to him. As we wrap up about eight, was saying about Russell vote. Andy Crowell, your final response to the significance of what he's doing. And if you see anything being able to stop him, including the Supreme Court, or would they? I think that's where a lot of these battles involving Russ votes, extremely aggressive

actions, his vision of this very powerful, unitary executive, these things are headed to the courts, and ultimately, I believe, the United States Supreme Court, cases about whether the president can impound federal funds, cases about whether the president can act unilaterally to fire tens or hundreds of thousands of federal workers breaking government unions in the process, we are headed for a pretty titanic court battle, court decision, I would say, in the next year or two, and one that could really change the way we think about how our representative of democracy works. Andy Crowell, investigative reporter for ProPublica, will link to your piece,

The Shadow President. Next up, armed only with a camera, the life and death of Brent Renaud. A new HBO documentary airs tonight. Stay with us. free I know that there's somebody who is waiting

for me I'll build a boat steady and true As it's done, I'm going to sail along in a dream. Dear Someone, by Lila Downs, performing in our Democracy Now studio. This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez, armed only with a camera. That's the name of a new HBO documentary about the filmmaker Brent Renault.

He was the first Western journalist killed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine in 2022. At the time, Brent was in Ukraine filming refugees for a documentary series. The Peabody Award-winning filmmaker was 50 years old. At the time of his death, he was with photographer Juan Aradondo, who was shot and wounded in that same attack. Brent Renault is a longtime filmmaker who'd reported across the globe, including in Colombia, Mexico, Egypt, Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Haiti, China, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Much of his work was done with his brother and filmmaking partner Craig Renaud. Craig's the director and producer of this new film.

This is the trailer. It begins with the Renault Brothers appearing on Democracy Now. We're joined by the Renault Brothers, Arkansas filmmakers. Brent, let's go. Okay. Oh, let's get out of here. When Brent told me that he wanted to be a documentary filmmaker, I followed my older brother to the most dangerous places in the world.

They're locking in on us. We've just got some breaking news. Brent Renaud, an American photojournalist, has been killed. Brent lost his life documenting the horrors, the battlefield in Ukraine. The work that he was doing, the bravery with which he did it. My name is Brent Renault. This is my brother Craig. Besides my brother, I struggle to make friends. Autism tells you very little about a person.

I can be calm as a Zen monk in a disaster zone. Soldiers over there. But the cocktail party in Brooklyn is absolutely terrifying. Brent was very intense and quiet. You put the cameras down? Yep. He filmed on the front line of conflicts. All around the world.

But what he cared about the most were the people caught in the middle. Describe what you see. There are no terrorists here, only civilians. What is your name? My name is Brent. The way you hold that camera, what you're doing from your heart. The trailer to the new HBO film armed only with a camera, the life and death of Brent Renaud, directed by Brent's brother Craig.

And this is an excerpt of Craig describing the moment when he heard from Juan Orlando that Brent had been shot. So he just kept repeating it. You know, we've been shot, we've been shot, we've been shot. And I said, where's Brent? And he said, he's been shot too. I've been pulled away into a separate vehicle. he's still there.

And I said, where was he shot? And I said, did he have his vest on? And he said, yes. And then I said, was he shot in the vest or the face? And one paused. He didn't answer me. And I knew right there in Brent was going. That's from Armed Only with a Camera,

the life and death of Brent Renaud. And that's Brent's brother Craig, director of the HBO film. Both colleagues of ours at Democracy Now when we all were working at DCTV at downtown community television. We're also joined by the journalist Juan Ardondo, who was shot in that attack that killed Brent. Juan's also one of the film's producers. Craig and Juan, welcome back to Democracy Now. It's great to have you with us, but terrible under the circumstances,

though this is truly this film is such a monument. your brother. Talk about the title, armed only with a camera. And what happened exactly to Brent? And Juan, of course, weigh in because you were critically injured on March 13th, 2022. Well, when Brent's funeral took place, there was a eulogy given by our mentor, John Alpert, the founder of the downtown community television center, where he talked about Brent walking into these conflicts armed only with a camera and that just felt very fitting for for what brent did you know he went to all the places around the world that you named and only with a camera um trying to get to civilians caught in the crossfire and juan can you describe that day yes we were um that was a sunday

march 13th and we were uh outside of kiev we were going to irping uh we wanted to get some footage of the people that were being evacuated from the outskirts of Kiev and being evacuated into the west. And that morning we had gone through several checkpoints. And when we got to the border between Kiev and Irping, there's a very famous bridge there that had already been bombed. At that point, we got out of our car and we walked trying to get to see these refugees being evacuated. And maybe 40 minutes. into our walk, a car stopped by, just to say, to know where we were trying to head to, and we said we were going to, between Irping and Bucha, and we got in the car, I sat in the back

of the car, Brent, sat in the front, and maybe 15 minutes into the ride, we were ambushed. We were attacked by Russian troops. I remember from the corner of my eye, I can see from the window from the trenches to soldiers, but the one closer to the road, had an AK-47, and it aimed the AK-47 to our car, and I yelled we were getting shot. I dug and tried to get some protection on the bottom of the car. And then the driver made a U-turn and put us in the crossfires of this, what we think, is a handful of Russian troops. And maybe, it felt like an hour, but it must have been maybe a couple of minutes and the car broke down and when I finally got up from the floor

I could see Brent bleeding and with a big wound on his neck. I was shot on my back and the car stopped. We took Brent out of the car, laid him on the ground and by that time I was bleeding and fainting. Another car came. They had a relay system of every 15 minutes coming to evacuate civilians. And so the driver made the decision of thinking, well, the worst that can happen is wait 15 minutes. Luckily for me, five minutes passed, and then the car took me and evacuated me. Bren, at that point, I believe it was already dead. And Craig, you and your brother had talked about what to do if anything happened to either of you while covering the war zone. What did you discuss and what made you decide to make this

Phil? Yeah, we'd had that conversation many times. I remember in Iraq, we were heading into Iraq with the Arkansas National Guard, and the contractors had just been hung from a bridge in Fallujah, and the soldiers around us were scared about heading into Iraq. We were going to be passing right through Fallujah, and I remember having that conversation with Brent. What if one of us are killed or one of us are kidnapped, and the conversation was always that we keep filming and we keep documenting, you know, what we're there to do, which is to tell the story of these conflicts. You're, of course, from Arkansas, the two of you, from Little Rock. Yeah, we are. I wanted to go to another clip from your film, only with a camera.

Brent Renaud is speaking to a Ukrainian woman whose house has just been bombed by Russia. This doesn't look yet. Destruction. We're just looking at destruction as the woman looks at her apartment and looks at the building. And we see Brent taking pictures. Were you here when the bomb hit?

Yes, we were here on the second floor. On the other side, there were three explosions, everything crashed down, the front door blown off. I can't explain it. We are very scared. Talk, Juan, about what you're trying to capture there and when this was. And also what, I mean, you are contemporaries, your colleagues, but what you feel Brent taught you. So this is in a city about an hour away from Kiev. It's called Sotomir. And we were there because in our way to Kiev, we had seen some bombing happening.

That is an apartment complex near a military base. What we were finding through our trip through Ukraine is that the bombings were not very accurate. They were hitting a lot of civilian houses, civilian complexes. also hitting buses, train stations. And so what we were trying to do is to witness what was happening there at the moment, trying to get the voices from the people who were being affected by this invasion in Ukraine. And this is perhaps maybe about the sixth or fifth year that I was working with Brent and Craig. And graciously, they took me under their wing.

Brent took me under his wing to teach me and to also work together and telling these stories. As a photojournalist, I always wanted to expand a little more into documentary filmmaking. And then Brent and Craig were gracious not to bring me along. And so that's what we were trying to do then. And Craig, could you talk some more about the way your brother carried himself as a journalist in these different places? You have clips from his time in Iraq, in Honduras, Somalia. Haiti, including the U.S. in Chicago, where he covered gang violence and its impact and the victims of gang violence. Well, we learned from John Alper, you know, one of the best

Beret documentary filmmakers that there is. And we started going to war zones with John soon after 9-11. And our approach was always pretty simple. You know, we just wanted to get to people and give them a voice and use our cameras to do that. and document and put a human face to the conflicts that were taking place. Speaking of a human face, another clip from Armed Only with a camera shows Brent talking to a 16-year-old teenager from Honduras. Imagine being 16 years old, leaving home on your own. I'm trying to make it all the way from Honduras to the United States. Anthony, there's all these dangers.

This is not the normal kind of thing for a kid like you to be doing. I don't have a father or mother. I've been alone since I was 10. I'd like to make this journey to the north to start a new family, God willing. Anthony, be careful, okay? and we hope to see you again. There's Craig, totally amazing in Honduras. Craig, who when he was talking to a Somalian severely injured in Somalia,

the man said to him the way that Brent carried himself as a journalist, that he was holding a camera with his heart. Brent, who as an adult, was diagnosed with autism, and being on the spectrum, Craig. What you want people to take away from this film and how you lived with him, even in his death, by making this film? Yeah, you know, we just wanted people to understand Brent's compassion.

You know, he was a very compassionate person, and when he was going to war zones, it was never about just trying to get to the front lines and cover conflict or soldiers shooting at each other. He wanted to humanize the people that were there. And that moment in Somalia was so powerful because he was documenting one of the worst car bombs in Somalia's history in a hospital. And this man who was severely burned from the car bomb is watching Brent from across the room, calls him over and just says, I can see you filming from the heart.

And that means a lot. And he said, you and I, we can change the world if we believe it. And Juan, you were wounded with Brent, as Brent lay dying. You grew up in Colombia. You lost your father, killed by drug cartels in Colombia. Your final message to people who watch this film tonight premiering on HBO. One of the takeaways is to hopefully people understand and appreciate the work that we do as journalists. as more and more we're seeing attacks on our colleagues around the world.

I hope that one of the messages that they take from this documentary is a close inside portrait of a brother, a family, and the loved ones what they go through when they lose a journalist and what we lose, and our democracy is what we lose when we lose a journalist. So hopefully that's what people will take away from this. And one of the most poignant moments at the end when people are holding up pictures of journalists around the world who have died, particularly in Gaza, in that other conflict right now, where over 250 journalists have been killed.

I want to thank you both for being with us. Juan Aradondo, Craig Renaud, Craig is the director of Armed Only with a Camera, the life and death of Brent Renaud, Juan, the producer. It premieres tonight on HBO, and that does it for. show. I'm Amy Goodman with Juan Gonzalez. Happy birthday, Robbie, Karen.